Nicene Creed

The Nicene Creed is a declaration of faith stated by the church fathers on the Council of Nicaea (325 AD). This is the first creed solving crucial doctrinal issues and church disunity.

The content of the creed is following:

The purpose of the creed is to define orthodox Christianity against sentiments of heretical groups (such as Arians, Gnostics, etc.).

Easter Celebration Date

One of the key issues that was addressed at the council was the proper way to calculate the date of Easter. Before the council, the celebration of Easter was observed on different dates by different Christian communities. Some Christians, known as Quartodecimans, celebrated Easter on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan, regardless of the day of the week. Others celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox, which is the beginning of spring. This discrepancy in the date of Easter created confusion and disunity among Christians.

The First Council of Nicaea sought to bring uniformity to the celebration of Easter. The bishops agreed that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This decision was intended to separate the Christian celebration from the Jewish Passover and to ensure that all Christian communities observed the holiday on the same day.

The council also established the Alexandrian Church as the authority responsible for calculating the date of Easter, since they had access to advanced astronomical knowledge at the time. Over the years, various methods have been developed to calculate the date, and the current method in use by most Western Christian churches is the Gregorian calendar-based computation.